


A Knighting

by TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard



Category: A.C.E (Beat Interactive Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Blood, Bodyguard, M/M, Magic, Modern Royalty, Power Imbalance, Rituals, Soul Bond, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 10:21:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29434515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard/pseuds/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard
Summary: On the night of the full moon, with a god as their witness, two become one.
Relationships: Kang Yuchan | Chan/Park Junhee | Jun
Comments: 24
Kudos: 37





	A Knighting

**Author's Note:**

> This started off as a quick little something-something posted to twt. It took on a life of its own and grew into this. Hope you enjoy.

Every full moon, the blood oath must be refreshed. Renewed. The prince must choose a new soul to tie to his own.

_Knights_ , his royal advisor always calls them.

_Fodder_ , Chan always corrects. Because what else can these people amount to? What worth do they have to offer him but soft flesh to take a bullet for him? A throat to swallow poison for him? To Chan, the dozens and dozens of these sheep are nothing but a parade of nameless sacrifices to the ever-hungry god that sleeps between his ribcage. There is nothing chivalrous about it. There is nothing noble about it. “Step forward, number eighty three.” Chan bellows.

Obediently, a young man steps forward. All Chan knows of him is that he's a fresh-faced guard straight out of the academy and that there were eighty two poor souls before him and there will be dozens of others after him. The man's pitch black hair is neatly trimmed. His face is angular and his eyes are stern yet he is handsome. And though he is narrowly-built for a bodyguard, he wears his ceremonial outfit with pride and care, the raven black and crimson red of it in stark contrast to his pale skin.

“Kneel,” says Chan, already tired. Already bored.

“Your Highness, I greet you.” The knight almost rushes to get down on his right knee. "It is an honor to be chosen by you. It is an honor to protect this country."

Chan stopped caring for these knights, for this pile of fodder, many moons ago. Many years ago. He no longer asks for their names. He has no reason to. Many of them die within days. Within hours. That's how perilous his life his. That's how often someone succeeds in aiming a weapon at him.

Prince Chan glances around the room at the gathered crowd of ministers and advisors and guards, at the paparazzi who hold cameras up towards his face. Many of the people lower their heads to avoid meeting his eyes. Even the cameras pause in their clicking and flashing.

In the past, when he was younger, the palace was decorated each month for this very occasion. The palace servants used seasonal flowers and beautiful paper lanterns and brightly-colored costumes to hide the darker meaning behind this ritual. These days, there are no decorations. No flowers. No wine. There is no dancing, no singing, no music and no costumes. The hall is sparse and empty and dark, like the inner chamber of a beast’s heart, and the only light is the cold, sterile glow of the moon beaming in through the patterns of the stained glass windows.

They have only just begun but Chan is ready for this to be over. He wants to retire to his bed and sleep until morning. He has been here and done all of this before. Countless times. He has stood here at the base of the stairs that lead up to his throne, sword in hand, with some frightened knight--some useless fodder--kneeling in front of him. They either cry or beg or attempt to flee, knowing so intimately that they will soon die. That their freedom is forfeit. But, willing or not, they do participate. There are numerous armed guards nearby to ensure that they do. The ritual is slow and intricate: the reading of the scriptures, the burning of the incense, the anointing with oils, the incantations, the food offerings, the prayer. There is supposed to be meaning in every step to this ritual, messages passed down from generation to generation, but Chan has long since stopped seeing the wonder in this so he goes through the motions robotically. Soullessly. And when it is his turn to speak or repeat some esoteric spell, his words ring hollow.

At last, the ceremony reaches its climax. One of Chan’s few dozen surviving knights steps forward. Number seventy. One of the smaller ones with large, round eyes and a boyish face and wild, curly hair. He has served Chan for thirteen moons now and will quite possibly remain a few moons longer since the god in Chan's body seems to favor him. But, regardless, he has yet another name that Chan refuses to learn. The knight unsheathes a small dagger, something thin and decorative with precious gems inlaid in the pommel. It is an old thing passed down from Chan's father. From Chan's father's father. From _his_ father. For all the horrid, wretched things it represents, it is beautiful. Chan holds out his left palm and does not flinch when the tip of the blade draws a line of bleeding red across his palm. Crimson blood sits on his palm and glitters in the moonlight like a handful of tiny, perfect rubies. Number seventy turns away and holds the dagger out towards number eighty three, repeating the bloodletting process. Chan holds his hand out towards the new knight. Towards the next man that will die for him. The kneeling man raises his own hand and then they press their bloody palms together. 

Already, the magicks go to work. Tying. Binding. Sealing. When royal and knight pull their hands apart, the cuts have healed. The slits in their skin are replaced by an intricate, faintly glowing rune. At least Chan remembers what this rune means: _soulmate_.

The prince sighs. Anxious. Restless. They have already been here half an hour yet there is still more to sit through. If only they could skip the pomp and ceremony of it all. What more does he need from this fodder except their blood and flesh and bones? Why must there be all this _extra_?

But the sooner they go through this, the sooner it will all end. And the faster he can begin dreading the passing of the next thirty days. “You will swear yourself to me,” Chan states. There is a whole speech to this that he has memorized but he discards it all to cut to the point. “You will be my shield and my sword.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” says number eighty three.

“You will follow me unquestioningly. You will not doubt me. You will not obstruct me. You only live to serve.”

The knight repeats, “Yes, Your Highness.”

Chan scoffs. _How does it feel_ , he thinks, _to know that you are but one of many? How does it feel to know that you will be nowhere near the first and most certainly not the last? How does it feel to know that it is inevitable that you will die because the world despises me just that much?_

It is as if the knight hears his worries as if he's spoken them aloud. The man lifts his gaze from the stone flooring and looks right up into the prince’s face. Meets his eyes with unwavering conviction.

Chan continues the rite. “Tonight, we will bind our souls. Your body is no longer your body. It is mine. The sole purpose in your life starting now is protecting the crown on my head.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” the knight says yet again. 

Now that Chan must look the man in the face, he’s all too aware of the knight’s handsomeness. Of the passionate fire that burns in his coal-dark eyes. Of the smoothness and softness of his pink lips.

His beauty is irritating. Chan furrows his eyebrows and narrows his eyes. He frowns in disapproval.

Chan has walked through the steps of this soul-binding ritual many times. He is used to the procedure and bored by the magicks, having done this before with dozens of knights who have already been buried. Yet there is something different about this one man. Chan is… unnerved by the fervor with which the knight stares up at him.

“How dare you look me in the eye, lowly knight,” the prince hisses.

Any lesser man would bow their heads, press their face to the floor and profusely apologize. Hell, if Chan drew his sword and beheaded the man right here and right now for his insolence, no one standing in the hall would question it.

But the prince does not draw his sword and the knight does not lower his eyes.

In fact, the knight boldly speaks out of turn. He talks back. “If my body is your body, does that not make me royal as well? Aren't we now equal?”

And such a declaration is borderline treasonous, an offense Chan can most certainly meet by severing the man’s head, but still he does not draw his sword.

There is something strange here, he realizes. There is something here that relieves his boredom. Amusement bubbles up in him. “Have you forgotten where you are,” he asks. “Do I need to remind you who I am?” As much as the servants try to keep their voices down in the halls of the palace, he hears their whispers. As much as the ministers try to stop the flow of gossip, Chan hears the dreadful rumors. He knows that his people see him as a tyrant and he tries so hard to become the very monster they believe he is. He has beheaded traitors and allies alike. Set fire to food stores. Flooded farmlands. Quelled uprisings. The amount of blood he has spilled is terrifying and unforgiveable.

Yet this man... this knight... Number eighty three regards him with absolutely no fear.

Chan must change that.

With a flourish, he draws his sword. The song of it echoes throughout the hall and makes an already quiet crowd go as still as corpses.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the people standing closest to him flinch and back away, fearing a spray of hot blood. But Chan does not slay the man. Even though he could. Even though it would be so easy. Instead, he merely places the flat of the sword onto number eighty three's left shoulder.

Still, the man’s expression does not change. 

_He must know_ , Chan thinks, _of how hated he will be from this night on. He must know that the target on my back has now been painted onto his._ But--

“You dare smile at me,” Chan asks.

The knight holds his gaze, unwavering. “Is it not an honor to be chosen by you? Is it not joyous to be bound to you, body and mind and heart and soul?”

Now Chan understands why the man’s behavior unsettles him so. The knight is eager for this. He wants this. He is _looking forward_ to this. It is as if he’s dreamed of giving up his blood and body if it means keeping Chan alive another day. 

And it is quite chilling that Chan is so unused to such loyalty. It sends a shiver up his spine that this knight does not beg for his life or attempt to flee his cursed fate. But he must not look away first. He is the acting ruler of this country while his ailing father slowly dies in his bedchambers. A sickness that has festered in the old man's heart for over six years but still won't show mercy and take him. Chan may still be called prince but he is _king_. He is the man feared by nobles and peasants alike. He is the one who has declared war on their neighbors. _He_ is the legend, so Chan will not look away from this regular, simple man’s eyes. He will not be the first to back down. To submit.

Chan's voice does not tremble at all when he repeats, “Your body is not yours. You live and breath to aid me in defying death. Every assassin’s blade meant for my chest, every traitorous dagger meant for my back, will find its way into yours instead.” The magick will make it so. The oath that binds them will make it so. That is what this all means. “Every drop of poison meant for my tongue will burn through yours instead. Every bullet aimed at my head will drive through yours instead. Do you understand?”

The knight’s expression does not darken with fear, as it should. Number eighty three continues to hold the prince’s gaze and smiles like he is but a stupid, adoring canine begging to be fed. 

Chan is disgusted by the devotion in the man’s eyes but he refuses to falter. He simply cannot. Not in a hall full of silent onlookers. “Has lameness claimed your tongue,” Chan spits. “What say you?”

The kneeling knight straightens his spine, raises his arm and reaches out a hand. Fast. Like a striking snake.

The guards standing at attention on either side raise their pistols, prepared to riddle the man's belly with bullets, but Chan holds up a hand to stop them and wave them back.

The knight’s hand touches Chan’s face. Not in an attack but in a caress. His calloused fingertips drag along the length of Chan’s jaw and gently cups his cheek.

Chan shifts his stance. He swats the offending hand away from his face. “How dare you?”

Number eighty three asks, “Have you not just told me that my body is your body? Does that not mean that your body is also mine?”

What backwards logic! Chan should cut the tongue from the man’s mouth. Or, better yet, slice the jaw from off of his head! But instead, the prince states, “The magick does not work in such a manner.”

“Are you sure? How can it not,” the knight asks. “How can a bond so powerful only work in one direction?” He attempts to reach for Chan’s face again but Chan slaps it away before such skin can touch his cheek. The knight is not deterred. He keeps on. “Are you not bound to me in the same way I am bound to you?”

Anger burns in Chan’s gut. This is not some marriage! This bond is no different from a pair of boots and the muddy street they must tread upon. Chan reminds this man of his lowly place by pressing the blade of his sword into the man’s neck. It doesn’t take much pressure at all for the weapon to break skin. For a trickle of blood to seep from the knight’s neck and dampen the man’s collar. “I can kill you.”

“You can,” the knight acknowledges, “but will you?” He softens his voice to barely above a whisper. "I know your heart is not as evil as they say."

Everything about this annoys Chan. The man’s handsome face. His bold, improper demands. His foolish platitudes. What makes him think that he is special when he is one of eighty three? When it is likely he will be dropped into a grave along with the other sixty who did not survive? Does he not realize that his life is in danger? Does he not understand that to live in the palace is to live in a den of savage wolves, under constant threat of tooth or claw? Chan has never been safe. Even in a room full of people who swore they would protect him! He has never been safe. “You _will_ die,” Chan reiterates, and he hates how his voice breaks.

“Yes, yes,” the knight says calmly, cooly. “I am fully prepared to be killed in your stead. I am willing to receive all of your pain. But is that the only thing that we will share?”

Chan scrunches up his nose in confusion. “What else is there?” What more is there to this tragic life but suffering and fear and hate?

“There can be pleasure,” the knight announces.

Chan blinks. He presses the blade of his sword a bit more firmly into the knight’s neck and delights in the fresh trickle of blood. “Explain yourself, number eighty three.”

The knight grins. His teeth are white and stark and beautiful in the moonlight. “Since my body is not mine, you already use it as a tool to protect yourself. Will you use it as a tool to satisfy yourself as well? Does the bond also work in such a way? Have you tried?”

What nonsense is this man spouting? “What do you mean?”

“Must I spell it out so plainly? Just like blades and poison and bullets, will every orgasm meant for you come to me instead?”

Such open vulgarity stirs the crowd, gets them murmuring and gasping, but Chan silences the crowd with a single shouted command. Chan moves the sword. Another fresh, shallow cut opens across number eighty three's neck.

Still, the man doesn’t waver. He doesn’t lower his gaze in deference. He does not stop grinning.

Now Chan knows the reason why this man unsettles him. 

He shows no fear when face to face with a tyrant. He does not beg for mercy as more and more of his blood spills down his neck. He does not cry for the freedom that he will lose when their souls are truly bound together by the last remaining sentences of the oath. 

The knight gazes up at Chan not with respect or with sadness or with hatred or with terror but with… love.

And such a thing may be worse.

“Are you suggesting that I take you to bed,” Chan questions, eyebrows raised.

“You can take me. Anywhere you wish.”

“No fodder-- No knight has ever spoken to me like this.”

“There are many things I can do with you that no knight has ever done.”

The proposition burns color across Chan’s face. The whispers of the crowd remind him of their audience. The embarrassment of it all sits heavy in Chan’s stomach but still he does not take his eyes off of the knight’s smirking face. Still he does not look away. Still he does not give in. He is the _king_ , dammit, and if blades and poison and bullets cannot kill him, neither will this sly fool!

As if to further weaken the royal’s resolve, the knight reaches out and grasps Chan’s left hand in both of his own. The hand that carries the symbol of their bond: the rune that declares them soulmates. The knight raises Chan's hand to his mouth and slowly kisses the knuckle of each finger before his mouth settles on the jeweled ring the prince wears as a symbol of his power. The magicks burn in Chan’s blood, set him boiling, and he lets out a quiet gasp. The ritual is incomplete. Their souls are intertwined but still remain unmoored. There is no way Chan should be able to feel their bond so strongly already. But he does. He feels the knight’s heart in his own chest. Feels his determination. His devotion. His utter seriousness.

“I cannot give you an heir,” the knight states, “but that does not mean I cannot be bred.”

Only years of practice and etiquette keeps Chan’s face stoic in the aftermath of such a declaration. Inwardly, a hurricane destroys the inner workings of his mind. Turns everything to buzzing white noise. The god in him finally stirs awake, intrigued. Chan feels the black shape of it stretch between his ribcage. He feels it tightly grasp his heart. He hears its voice send tremors through his soul. Chan has never heard it do such a thing before. He has never heard it beg. Never felt it _yearn_.

But Chan can't entirely write off every white-hot electric feeling beneath his skin to the god's will. His own body reacts as well. It has been many moons since Chan has felt the searing hot touch of another. If memory serves him correctly, it was before his coronation. Some secret tryst in the garden back when his father still sat upon the thrown. Chan has grown used to ignoring such carnal urges over his reign. Such ecstasy, such simple pleasure, is impossible to come by in a palace where he must make himself be feared and hated. Chan refuses to show it, but he keens at the idea of experiencing intimacy. Bedding such a man would not be the worst of deals. But to be eager is to be weak, so Chan steels his expression and pleads with the god in his chest to be still. Aloud, with surety he does not completely feel, he says, “If you ever bore me, if you fail to please me even once, I will personally deliver your severed head to your mother’s doorstep.”

Yet such a threat makes the knight smile instead of shudder. “Then I will live for many moons.”

The prince frowns deeply. “Such misplaced confidence.” Though he must admit that such big talk both thrills him and worries him. Excites him yet intimidates him. He will admit to himself his own inexperience so he almost does not want to know the depths of the knight’s skill in bed. Almost.

The knight says, “If you think my confidence is misplaced or even shallow, then let me prove it. Let me show you firsthand the lengths I will go to in order to _protect_ you. Like a good knight should.” Then, as little more than an afterthought, he adds, “Your Highness.”

The god that sits in Chan’s chest roars loudly. The triumphant bellow rings in Chan’s ears like victory music but the prince knows he is the only one in the room who can hear such raucous noise.

“Very well.” Chan lifts the sword from the man’s bleeding shoulder, swings it over the knight’s head and places it on his opposite shoulder. 

At long last, the knighting is complete. The oath is sealed. Chan can _feel_ the burning edges of their connection as their souls tie together. 

It almost feels too late to ask, but Chan proceeds, “What is your name, number eighty three?”

“Jun,” the knight responds. He stands slowly, dislodging the sword from his shoulder and bringing their faces close. “But since my body is no longer my body, my name is no longer my name. You may call me whatever you wish.”

Chan still does not look away from the man’s gaze. He still does not submit. He is king. “Then you are mine and mine alone.”

At long last, the knight lowers his gaze to the floor. But his grin does not dim. “I am yours and yours alone, Your Highness.”

**Author's Note:**

> [cc](https://curiouscat.me/TheSwingbyJHF)


End file.
